


The Calm After the Storm

by ladymedraut



Category: Hamlet - Shakespeare, Much Ado About Nothing - Shakespeare, SHAKESPEARE William - Works, The Tempest - Shakespeare
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-02-22
Updated: 2018-04-13
Packaged: 2018-05-22 08:43:04
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 4,809
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6072663
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ladymedraut/pseuds/ladymedraut
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sebastian rules the seas, Antonio is no longer dead, their brothers are leaving them alone. Life finally seems to be looking up for the pair of rogues. Except Sebastian has a tendency to take pity on castaways, and pretty soon his ship has become a home for the leftovers of other people's tragedies... </p>
<p>(set after 'Just A Shot Away')</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> I got bored during rehearsal... (clearly this is a common phenomenon)

Captain Sebastian di Napoli was not particularly happy about being stranded in Denmark. However, he supposed there were much worse places to be in the middle of a blizzard than huddled in the back of a tavern warmed by a roaring fire, sitting across from Antonio with a large tankard of ale in front of him. They could have been stuck on the high seas getting frostbite and fighting to stay afloat, with the wind tearing through their clothes and ice freezing their eyelashes together. He should be thankful that they were on dry land and in a nice, warm building.

“More ale,” slurred the decrepit-looking man on the other side of the tavern, and Sebastian watched with vague interest as the bartender shuffled over to him, rolling up his sleeves as he went.

“Not until you pay,” the rather large, well-muscled man grunted.

Sebastian’s fingers drifted towards the pistols at his waist, and he noticed Antonio going for his sword. But they had no need to worry, the drunk was not the violent sort. When he told the bartender that he had no money at the moment, the big man picked him up by the collar of his tattered shirt and began to drag him out of the tavern, regardless of his protests that he would surely be able to pay it back tomorrow, or maybe the day after.

A blast of cold air hit Sebastian’s face as the door was flung open and the drunkard was tossed unceremoniously into a snowbank.

“No,” Antonio sighed, draining his tankard and casting sightless eyes skyward. “Seb—”

“But he’s going to freeze to death!” Sebastian protested, already rising to his feet with a hand on his purse. No one deserved to be thrown out in that kind of weather, no matter what hard fortunes they had fallen on. Before Antonio could stop him, Sebastian strode over to the bartender and slapped down a few coins. “For his drinks,” he explained, jerking his head towards the table where the man had been sitting.

The bartender shook his head, but he took the money all the same. “You’re wasting your charity on that one. He’s just a run-down servant that got kicked out when the old king died and has been trying to drown himself in cheap liquor ever since.”

“I’ll make my own judgments,” Sebastian shot back over his shoulder as he crossed to the door. The drunkard was right where the bartender had thrown him, curled up in a snowbank with ice already crusting in his ruddy hair. His breathing was so shallow that Sebastian wondered for a moment if the bartender had snapped his neck when he threw him to the ground, but upon closer inspection Sebastian saw that his chest was still moving. Why Sebastian felt it necessary to walk out in the middle of a blizzard and rescue a sodden drunk from hypothermia was beyond him. Perhaps it was because the Acquatis would have done it.

Whatever his motivation was, Sebastian grabbed the other man’s thin wrist and hauled him to his feet, draping his arm around his shoulders and helping him stumble back inside the tavern. He was met by Antonio’s baleful glare when he deposited the sack of snow and rags on the bench next to him.

“What?” Sebastian protested.

“It’s disgusting. I can smell it from here. You know, I’m rather glad that I’m blind so that I can’t see what it looks like.”

Sebastian glanced down at the man he had pulled out of the snow. He appeared to be unconscious. “Now you’re just being rude.”

“Fine. How about this? We sober him up, and if he’s someone you actually want to associate with, he can stick around. If not, I get to gloat _and_ choose the next seven taverns we go to.”

“Done.” Sebastian shook Antonio’s offered hand. “Help me get him up to our room.”

Antonio grumbled and complained and made his general displeasure with the whole situation known to the rest of the tavern’s customers, but Sebastian couldn’t help but notice the smile tugging at the corners of his mouth as they dragged the inebriated man up the steps.

“You were always a better human being than I was,” Antonio chuckled dryly.

“I know.”

* * *

Sebastian woke up early the next morning, carefully extricated himself from Antonio’s arms, and procured the largest bucket of cold water he could find. It wasn’t hard, considering the amount of ice outside.

“Morning,” he grunted, shoving the hung-over man lying on the floor with the toe of his boot. The man made a small noise but didn’t bother to open his eyes. And so Sebastian sighed, picked him up by the hair, and shoved his head underwater.

“Wh-what was that?” the man stammered, furiously blinking dark eyes. Judging by his accent, he was Danish. Sebastian was not surprised.

The captain gave him a few more dunkings for good measure. “That,” he explained once he was certain the other man was in a fit state to understand him, “was me paying off your bar debt and hauling your sorry corpse out of the snow last night.”

“You should have left me there,” he grunted, breaking free of Sebastian’s grip on his arm and staggering towards the door, where he encountered a shirtless Antonio lounging against the wall, twirling a dagger through his fingers.

“You were saying?”

“Antonio!” Sebastian barked. “Stop intimidating the poor man!”

“You don’t even know who I am!” the shabbily-clad man cried. He had either sobered up incredibly quickly or was doing an excellent job of hiding his hangover. “Let me go. I appreciate your attempt at kindness, but don’t burden yourself with me.”

Sebastian snatched him away from Antonio and spun him around. “Who are you then?” Underneath the dirt and the filth was a rough-hewn face, spattered with freckles, surprisingly young for one with so much bitterness and despair in his voice.

The man spat his name out like a curse. “Horatio.”

Horatio. _Horatio._

_His name is Horatio,_ Hamlet had told him once, before Sebastian let him go to his death.

_He’s a servant that got kicked out when the old king died_ … Or the old prince.  

Of course, there were probably scores of Horatios in Denmark. But Sebastian had the distinct feeling that this was the Horatio that Hamlet had spoken of.

“I’m Sebastian di Napoli. And that impolite moron is Antonio di Milano. I promised Hamlet that I would look after you if anything happened to him.” Sebastian didn’t think it was possible for Horatio’s eyes to open any wider after hearing his name, but when he mentioned Hamlet, they did.

“You’re the pirate captain who rescued him from the English. But… But he said…” Horatio turned on Antonio, a mixture of revulsion and wild hope in his eyes. “You were dead. _You came back from the dead._ ”

Antonio, looking decidedly uncomfortable, slunk away from Horatio. “He’s giving me that look, isn’t he?” he asked Sebastian.

“Yes,” Sebastian confirmed. “You explain it to him. I’ve done quite enough already.” He had promised the Danish prince that he would look after Horatio if their paths ever crossed. And here he was, with a Horatio very much in need of someone to look after him huddled by his feet.

“I died at sea,” Antonio explained, as gently as he could. “I was sent down to Poseidon’s Graveyard, but Seb brought me back. It cost me my sight, but I can live with that—at least I won’t be falling prey to Seb’s puppy dog eyes ever again. And no, you can’t bring Hamlet back the same way.”

It was like someone had kindled a brief spark of life in Horatio, then promptly snuffed it out. He sagged back to the floor, staring beseechingly up at the two pirates. “Are you sure?” he whispered.

“If Hamlet didn’t die at sea, he’s not in the Graveyard,” Sebastian stated. “I’m sorry, Horatio, I don’t know where his soul is. But you are welcome to sail with us—we’re leaving Denmark as soon as this storm lifts.”

“Leaving Denmark?”

Oh god, he was so small, so lost, so alone. Sebastian wanted to wrap his arms around him and tell him that it would be okay, that he had stood in his place not so very long ago and it would all work out in the end. But it wouldn’t, not for Horatio. Hamlet was gone, and even the high king of the seas couldn’t bring him back.

“Yes. We’re going south. We could use an extra hand if you want to come.” Sebastian held out his hand, and for a moment he thought Horatio was going to take it.

“I can’t. I can’t leave,” Horatio sobbed instead, wrapping his arms around his knees. “What if his ghost comes back? What if he comes looking for me? What if I’m not here?”

Much to Sebastian’s surprise, Antonio crouched down to put a comforting hand on Horatio’s shoulder. “If he comes back, he will find you wherever you are. And in the meantime, he wouldn’t want you to spend your days drinking away his memory.”

“How would you know what he would want me to do?” Horatio spat. “You never even met him!”

Antonio’s fingers drifted to the scars on his left shoulder. He had made a habit of tracing them when he was thinking of his time spent among the drowned. “No, no, I didn’t,” he said quietly. “But I died, and I left behind someone who meant more to me than my own life, and I know that I would have been furious if he decided to waste the time I had given him. You don’t have to come with us if you don’t want to—not everyone is made for the sea, the gods know that I know that. But whatever you do, Horatio, don’t throw your life away.”

There was a long moment of silence when Sebastian was afraid that Horatio would ignore Antonio, but then the younger man slowly uncurled himself and let Antonio help him back to his feet.

“So we leave when the storm lifts?”

* * *

“He’s settling in,” Antonio remarked a few weeks later. They had quit Denmark as soon as the weather had improved, and Sebastian had brought them back to the Mediterranean. Horatio had taken to sitting in the crow’s nest, scanning the horizon for something only he could identify and fiddling with telescopes and compasses and bits of flotsam. But Antonio had convinced him to take his meals with the rest of the crew, and Horatio had slowly started to emerge from the fortifications he had built around himself.

“Aye,” Sebastian agreed, watching as Horatio tinkered with a pair of broken compasses. “Although I don’t think he’s given up hope of finding Hamlet.”

A small smile flickered across Antonio’s face. “Of course he hasn’t. And he never will.”

 


	2. Chapter 2

“Hey! Throw us a rope, would you?”

Sebastian had the strangest sense of déjà vu when he glimpsed the bedraggled pair of swimmers making their way across the Messinian harbor towards _La Tempesta_ , Leonato’s guards running along the docks behind them in vain. It was oddly reminiscent of his and Antonio’s escape from Naples two years ago, an escape that had ended with the two of them clambering aboard the very ship that he was now captain of. And so Sebastian sighed and tossed the two women a rope, as the Acquatis had done for him.

“Are you happy?” he muttered to the wind as the women began to climb.

_Very,_ the wind whispered back with a voice that he thought was Annette’s. The dry sarcasm was still evident in her voice, even half a world away—or perhaps less than half a world. Sebastian had not seen _Tyger’s Heart_ for the better part of a year, for all he knew the Gorgon sisters might be just on the other side of Sicily. They still spoke to him sometimes though, faint whispers that came in unexpectedly on the breeze. He hadn’t told the rest of the crew. He didn’t want them to know that there was more salt water than blood in his veins now. He didn’t want them to be afraid.

“Welcome aboard _La Tempesta,_ ” Sebastian said, burying dark thoughts of his newfound powers as he and Horatio helped the two runaways over the railing. “Captain Sebastian di Napoli, at your service.”

“Conrade,” the taller one introduced herself, wringing out her hair as she strategically placed herself between Sebastian and her black-clad companion. Sebastian recognized something of Antonio’s protective fire in her dark eyes, and perhaps something of himself in the second woman’s cool, reserved gaze.

“Johanna,” the other woman said softly.

“That’s a lie,” Antonio remarked as he swaggered down from the quarterdeck, a new tricorn hat perched jauntily on his dark hair and his loose white shirt billowing in the breeze.

With some difficulty, Sebastian wrestled down the urge to kiss him and instead demanded that he explain what the hell he was talking about. His first mate grinned as he slung his arm around Sebastian’s shoulders and gestured towards the newcomers.

“Your mother named you John, trying to convince your father that you were a son so he would take you in,” he said, sketching a bow in the women’s direction. “And he did. Although I imagine he figured out you were his bastard daughter instead quickly enough. Still, as I recall, you once challenged me to a duel for calling you Johanna.”

The slim, black-haired woman’s eyes snapped open. There was something vaguely unsettling about those eyes… It took Sebastian a few moments to realize that they were two different colors, dark amber around the pupils bleeding out into slate grey irises. Johanna—or John—fixed Antonio with her unsettling gaze, unaware that its effect was completely lost on him.

“Antonio di Milano,” she retorted. “Your brother has been looking for you.”

“My brother can rot in hell for all I care,” Antonio shot back. “He can keep Don Pedro company.”

Horatio took this opportunity to voice Sebastian’s increasingly clamorous thoughts. “Um, do you guys know each other?”

John’s two-tone eyes flickered to the young Danish man. “Too many diplomatic dinners.”

“Far too many,” Antonio agreed. “With Pedro far too drunk and Prospero far too sober.”

“Don’t get me started,” she sighed, rolling her eyes. “So what brings you here? Coup didn’t work out? It’s okay, mine didn’t either. You still seeing that guy in Naples? Stefan? It was something like that, wasn’t it?”

“Sebastian,” he corrected her. “Sebastian, meet John. She’s actually pretty cool once you get past the bitterness and the weird eyes. She’s Don Pedro of Aragon’s sister.”

The young woman grimaced. “Bastard sister. Glad you made it out alive, Sebastian. You have no idea how horrible it was listening to this idiot fret over whether or not you were going to die before he made it back to Naples again. Downright depressing.”

“Um, yeah, I’m glad too. So what the hell are you doing here?” And why had he never seen her in Naples? Surely Aragon had sent them a delegation at some point in time…

“Well _someone_ came up with a wonderful plan to ruin her brother’s friend’s marriage—and somehow, by extension, her brother’s life—and it backfired spectacularly,” Conrade drawled.

On second thought, Conrade reminded Sebastian much more of himself than John did.

“Hey, it was Borachio’s idea, not mine!” John retorted.

“Yeah, but you went along with it.”

“What else was I supposed to do?”

“Oh, I don’t know, maybe _think of a better plan?!_ ”

Oh yes, Sebastian knew exactly how Conrade felt. He motioned for Horatio, who had recently taken over as quartermaster, to bring a change of clothes for the two new crewmembers. Well, they hadn’t actually signed the articles yet, but Sebastian had the feeling as he watched John and Conrade bicker that they would fit right in with the rest of his mismatched crew.

Antonio gave a pointed cough, and the two women broke apart, fury slumbering in John’s strange eyes. “So I take it you’re staying?” he asked, a thin smile dancing at the corners of his mouth.

“If you’ll have us.” John snatched the tunic and trousers Horatio handed her. He had chosen all black, Sebastian noted absentmindedly.

“I’m a bit shorthanded at the moment,” Sebastian admitted. Fiorenzo had chosen to stay behind in Messina, and with the Acquatis’ departure several months earlier, _La Tempesta_ ’s already small crew was starting to feel the strain. “I’ll take you to sign the articles—don’t worry, they’re not cursed anymore.”

“ _Anymore?_ ” Conrade hissed, eyebrows raised, putting a hand on John’s shoulder as she made to follow Sebastian.

“Long story,” Antonio sighed. “The short version is that some witch put a curse on the ship that someone had to die before she could drop anchor, I drowned, Sebastian and some Gorgons pulled me out of the Locker, there were a bunch of undead British sailors, we won, the Gorgons split off on their own, Seb became the pirate king, and I lost my sight.”

“Wait, so I’ve been wasting all my sarcastic eye-rolling on you?”

“John, I don’t need to see you to know how perpetually fed up with everything you look. Although I’m sure Seb finds it entertaining.”

“I’m trying to figure out when she’s going to punch you,” Sebastian chimed in. “And whether or not I should warn you.”

Horatio sighed deeply and ran a hand through his ragged hair. “I’m never going to get a moment’s peace with you four around, am I?”

“Nope,” Conrade grimaced, draping her arms around Sebastian and Horatio’s shoulders as her companion squared off against her childhood friend. “Although I think those two are mostly the ones at fault. I’m just the oft-ignored voice of reason.”

“I know the feeling. How do you put up with it all?”

Conrade blushed and grinned sheepishly. “I love her.”

“I know that feeling too,” Sebastian said, watching as Antonio dodged John’s left hook and knocked her feet out from under her. The black-haired woman went down, but somehow she managed to turn her fall into a roll and leapt back up again, perfectly balanced. “I’d say we should stop them, but they look so happy to be beating each other up.”

“I haven’t seen John smile like that since—since before the war.”

“War?” Horatio asked.

“She led a rebellion against Don Pedro, her brother,” Conrade explained. “He crushed it. Didn’t even have the dignity to throw her in prison afterwards, just welcomed her back into his court and left her to be forgotten.”

Sebastian was only half listening to Conrade. The majority of his concentration was focused on the bastard princess as she vaulted over Antonio’s head and landed a whirling kick on his back. If she hurt him… But as Antonio skidded to a stop, his white shirt filthy beyond any chance of redemption, Sebastian realized that he was laughing. John reached out a hand to pull him back up to his feet, and Antonio flung his arms around her.

“I missed you,” she murmured into his shoulder.

“I missed you too, little sister.”

Sebastian’s heart skipped a beat. “Did I just hear what I thought I heard?”

“Pretty sure they’re actually cousins or something,” Conrade said calmly. “But John always said Antonio was more a brother to her than Pedro ever was. I think they both kind of adopted each other in place of the shitty excuses for siblings they had.”

“Does that make us unofficial siblings-in-law?” Sebastian grinned.

“I think it does,” Conrade smiled back.


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> No, you're not imagining things, I did indeed update this at long last... I just found an old folder with a bunch of half-finished things so, um, here's this. Who knows, maybe in another two years I'll add another chapter :)

“Captain?”

Sebastian swore softly under his breath. He couldn’t have been asleep for more than ten minutes. But the waters were calm, the night was still, Antonio was lying peacefully next to him—what could possibly be wrong?

“What is it, Conrade?” he muttered, grabbing his pistols as he rolled out of bed. “Has there been trouble from Calais?” He’d thought they could steal between Dover and Calais under the cover of darkness, but perhaps he had been mistaken. Perhaps Conrade had spotted a British ship, or a French one—

Sebastian was now fully awake, but he still wasn’t prepared for the words that Conrade uttered next.

“Sorry to disturb you, Captain. But there’s a ghost.”

“A ghost?”

“A ghost?” Antonio echoed groggily a few seconds later. “Who’s ghost?”

“A woman in white,” Conrade said as she led Sebastian and Antonio out of their cabin. “Up there, in the fighting top. She wasn’t there at the beginning of my watch, but a few moments ago I looked up and there she was. Said she wanted to speak with the captain, so I thought I’d better fetch you—”

“Who are you?” Sebastian called up to the pale figure. _La Tempesta_ had been through enough supernatural nonsense to last several lifetimes, the last thing he needed was a ghost infestation on his ship.

 _Are you the captain?_ the ghost asked, still keeping her distance. Her tattered dress was a remnant of another age, her shoulders bowed under the weight of years spent alone.

“I am Captain Sebastian di Napoli of _La Tempesta_. Who are you?”

 _You sail a ghost ship, and yet you have no ghost._ She melted into the mast at the fighting top and stepped back out on deck in front of him with a shy grin.

Before Sebastian could stop him, Antonio took an indignant step forwards. “I am this ship’s resident ghost,” he proclaimed, tugging open the collar of his shirt so she could see the mass of scars covering the trident tattoo over his heart.

 _You are not a ghost,_ the woman said, wispy fingers reaching up to cup his chin. _Not anymore._

Antonio made to snatch her wrist away from him, but his hand passed straight through her. “Who are you?” he spat.

 _I am the dregs of someone else’s story, the leftovers of others’ tragedies. He knows what I mean._ The ghost nodded to Horatio, who stood frozen to the deck in shock.

“Who are you?” Horatio managed to gasp, but the ghost only smiled.

Sebastian was getting tired of this. All he wanted was to go back to his cabin, to stay there wrapped in Antonio’s arms as the sea rocked him to sleep, and then to wake up in the morning to a ship free of ghosts and spirits and preternatural pests. Was that too much to ask for? “What do you want?”

_A position on your ship._

“I will consider it if you will give me your name.”

_What’s in a name?_

The sea was ringing in Sebastian’s ears. He wasn’t sure what he could do to something as insubstantial as the woman in white, but he was willing to bet that he would stand a better chance against her than Antonio would. He was moments away from calling on the water when John materialized out of the darkness.

"You’re not supposed to be at sea,” she said, her arms folded over her chest.

 _What do you know of where I am supposed to be?_ The ghost whirled on John, her skirts flaring out around her.

“You didn’t die here.”

_But a part of me did._

“Part of you, or your sister?”

_I fought on these waters!_

“Your father fought, you stayed below.”

_I have known the roar of the guns and the teeth of the storm._

“But only for a moment.”

Sebastian watched in stunned silence as John bantered back and forth with the ghost. The woman in black and the woman in white, circling each other around the deck as he looked on. Part of him felt like he should do something—he was the captain, after all—but he had no idea what that “something” was.

“I could tell this whole ship just who and what you are—”

 _No!_ The ghost lunged for John, forgetting her state in her agitation. She passed straight through the other woman and whirled around to face her again, rage sharpening her features. Her anger seemed to make her more substantial, and Sebastian caught a flash of red in her hair.

John stood toe to toe with the furious ghost, but her voice was gentle when she finally spoke. “You’re ashamed, aren’t you? That you didn’t do more when you had the chance. That you’re still here, when everyone else is gone—they left you behind, again. I know how you feel. My family left me behind too, they called me a disgrace and swept me under the rug and forgot about me. But on this ship, that doesn’t matter. The sea washes everything clean, and we don’t have to be what we were before.” John reached out her hand, and to Sebastian’s surprise, the ghost took it as well as she could and let John lead her to Sebastian and Antonio.

As she approached them, her clothing changed, shifting from robes of state to a simple skirt and a flowing white shirt. Her hair braided itself in an invisible breeze, white roses blossoming around her brows. She bobbed a quick curtsy to Sebastian, and he got the feeling that she wasn’t used to kneeling to anyone.

“My lady,” he greeted her.

 _Captain._ _I’m afraid I can’t lift a pen to sign your articles. Will you accept a promise instead?_

“I suppose it will have to do.”

The ghost placed a transparent hand over her heart. _I swear to serve this ship and her crew until my living day._ Something in the timbers creaked, like _La Tempesta_ letting out a sigh of relief, or maybe a chuckle at her choice of wording, and the ghost’s feet finally settled all the way to the deck.

“Welcome aboard,” Sebastian said. “How would you like us to address you? Ghost?”

 _I hadn’t really thought about that…_ She reached up to adjust the flowers blooming in her braid. _Rose. You may call me Rose._

* * *

 

Sebastian caught John by the arm as he made his way back to his cabin. “You know who that is, don’t you,” he hissed under his breath.

John shook his arm off with a glower. “I should think you’d recognize her too – you were raised in court, were you not? Did they not teach you the history of foreign lands in Naples?”

“My tutors never thought it prudent to teach me to identify ghosts.”

John rolled her eyes. “Young noblewoman, Northern accent with ties to Calais, unfortunate relationship with her husband, with _white roses_ in her hair. Come on, Sebastian.”

“You don’t mean to suggest that’s—that’s—”

John nodded.

“Well then. Let’s hope Lady Anne doesn’t bring the rest of King Richard’s ghosts down on us.”

“Too late for that.” John nodded in the direction of the bowsprit, where another pale figure was waiting for them with arms crossed over an armored chest.

 _Boo,_ Margaret said.

Before Sebastian could open his mouth to tell her that his ship already had a resident ghost, thank you very much, John grabbed his shoulder and hissed into his ear that this woman had been known—among other things—to crown her arch-nemesis’ head with a paper crown and stick it on a spike and curse the majority of the English court. She was not a woman to cross.

“Are you seeking employment too?” Sebastian asked instead.

 _A queen does not seek employment._ She did not move from the bowsprit. It was clear from her posture that Sebastian and John would have to come to her if they wanted to speak face to face. _A queen seeks revenge._

“You’ve got the wrong ship then. _La Tempesta_ is just a bunch of misfits in a big wooden tub.” Sebastian ignored John’s elbow in his side. “You want _Tyger’s Heart._ You’ll get along with her crew much better.” One day, perhaps, he would have to answer for setting the ghost of Margaret d’Anjou on the unsuspecting Acquati sisters, but he had the feeling that the four women would actually get on quite well once the initial hostilities were over.

 _Tyger’s Heart?_ A small smile tugged at the corner of Margaret’s mouth. _That does indeed sound like a ship for me._

And then she was gone, without thanks or farewell.

“Kindly get us out of here before we pick up anymore ghosts, John.”

“Aye aye, Captain.” She threw him a salute that was probably mocking, but Sebastian was too tired to care.

And so _La Tempesta_ sailed west with the ghost now know as Rose in the crow’s nest, fighting down a shout of joy as the world opened up before her at last. And then she realized that there was no reason to keep her feelings bottled up anymore, and she whooped with excitement as England faded into the distance.


End file.
